Monday, 11 April 2016

Italy: Venice Part 1

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!

It's finally time for my long awaited spring break!! My friends and I had been planning for this trip for months in advance. Everything had been arranged from flight tickets to accommodations. So, off we go...The first place that we went to is venice.We took easyjet to Venice, we got the first seat on the flight, which is just in front of the cockpit. woohoooo!! During boarding, people at the counter gets some mixup with the seats arrangements where they gave occupied seats to other people. There were some confusions, luckily we were not affected.

The
flight went directly to Venice Marco Polo airport, which is just a few
minutes waterbus ride to our accommodation. I bought the flight tickets
to depart at night (8.30pm London time) and we arrived almost at midnight.
Little that we know, the last waterbus is at 9.30pm. It was a good thing
there's a shuttle bus that will go to venice for €8, one way. There
were hardly any seat, but there's a guy that was so nice, he gave us his
seat and he stood all the way. It gave a very good first impression on
the locals.

We
arrive at a place called Piazzale Roma and got off the bus. There were a
few water taxi still operating when we asked the nice guy, but we
couldn't find the ticket booth nor the dock. So my bestie went ahead and
ask a taxi driver nearby. He told us, we could just walk to our
accommodation which will take roughly about 13 minutes or so. Lucky my
other friend has free data plan where we can use gps to find our way.

Of
course gps can give you the wrong direction, which it did. So we were
walking around the alleys, it was gloomy and silent as the grave. If you
haven't been to venice, just so you know, there are no vehicle allowed
in venice (they won't fit in most of the roads anyway). So your only
choice is either by water taxi, or walk. The roads (more like alleys)
sometimes can be narrow. The buildings are tall and close to each other,
which means you can't really tell where exactly you are if you are not
familiar with the place. The road signs sometimes are non existent.

At last, we did finally found our accommodation which is an apartment that I find on airbnb. When we arrived, it was after 1am, the owner had given instructions for us to enter the apartment and our room. However, to our surprise, when we arrive, my name was not on any doors as told by the owner.

The first time it was my friend who checked the doors. When I checked, I saw my name rubbed off and another guys' name (Jorge) was written on top. The keys that was left for me was a perfect match for that room. I couldn't call the owner because it was too late already. My bestie knocked on the door of the guys that took our room. They were trying to tell us that they got that room, eventhough we know they were full of it. Their room only have three beds. It was a good thing that I was so freaking tired already, so I have no more energy to argue and that one of our friend cancelled at the last minute, so there were only three of us. We ended up staying at the room that were meant for them. I texted the owner so that he'll get in touch with me the next day regarding the mixup.

The next day, we didn't let the room mixup spoil our day. We got up bright and early and went off for our visit around venice.

This is the view of the alley at our house from our room window. Most alleys in venice looks like this, small and narrow.

I'll continue about the trip in venice in a later post. Until next time...Ciao!